Chapter 21
Now
I stare at the ceiling of my room. The moonlight sheds just enough light on the Artex for me to follow its swooping patterns, in hopes that with enough time it might lull me into a sleep.
I have no idea how long I’ve been lying like this, tracing the crumbling paint with only my eyes, trying not to think about everything, trying not to think about how we used to be before.
But in telling myself that, my mind forces all of those thoughts to flood through me.
How is it that I can be so exhausted, and yet my body just can’t allow itself to switch off?
It’s been a week since Halloween. A week of sleepless nights, ignoring everyone and all the notifications on my phone, and days crammed with work, just to fill my brain enough to not let me think any more about what happened. I am quite literally haunted by Halloween now. How ironic.
The first tap at the window, I pass off as the noises of an old house, adjusting to the cold of the end of autumn.
The second tap, the same. The third, however, makes me stop for a second, listening for a fourth.
Right on cue, it comes, and I watch the empty shell of a conker hit the pane of glass softly.
Shuffling out of bed, I wrap my dressing gown around me and look down at the garden below.
Jacob stands at the bottom, collecting the softest shells he can find at the foot of the horse chestnut, having not yet seen me. When he turns back and tosses the next one, I catch it in my hand, and fling it straight back at him, watching it as it bounces off his head.
‘What did I tell you about my Granny’s windows?’ I whisper as he rubs the sore spot in his hairline.
‘Sorry,’ he replies, a guilty look crossing his face. ‘It just couldn’t wait.’ His mouth shifts into a grin as he practically vibrates with excitement at the foot of the house.
‘What couldn’t wait?’ I furrow my brows, intrigued, yet still trying to maintain my distance, reminding myself of all of our past meetings of late, my heart still sore from Halloween.
‘Come down and I’ll show you.’ He beckons me, his smile entirely unreserved, his energy so infectious I have to stop myself leaping from the window just to join him faster.
But I can’t just act like I would have before.
Has he just completely forgotten about our argument?
Or is he happy with how we left it – agreeing that we are friends, nothing more?
‘Or you could just tell me?’ I whisper again, but the click of the bathroom light interrupts me and I force a hand over my mouth in hopes that I can dampen some of the noise.
I stare at Jacob with wide eyes, putting a finger to my lips.
He gets the message rather quickly and ducks behind the trunk of the tree, into the shaded edge of the night.
After a minute, once I’ve heard the footsteps retreat back along the hallway, I finally have the courage to speak again. ‘Fine, just wait there and don’t make a sound.’
Creeping around this old house is almost impossible.
It’s as though Granny and Grandad booby-trapped every floorboard and door to creak as loudly as possible to make sneaking out completely hopeless.
As they both got older, it had become easier – either their hearing worsened, or they just couldn’t be bothered to jump out of their beds in the middle of the night.
But now that Mum is in residence, and she has insane bat-like hearing, I’m going to have to be smart about my escape.
The tree is a no go. My feet, and blood pressure, still haven’t forgiven me from the last time.
So, carrying my shoes with me, I shuffle along the landing on the very edge of each floorboard, making it to the stairs with hardly a murmur.
Sitting down on the first step, I push myself over each one on my bum, hoping the extra surface area might balance my weight a little better, and I almost make it until the very last step—
The loud creak calls out to my mother like a snitching younger sibling, wanting me to get as far as possible to get into as much trouble as possible.
Freezing, I hold my breath, hoping not a single exhale will be enough to push it and send mum’s door flying open.
When the yell doesn’t come, or the aggressive footsteps, I race across the kitchen and out of the door before I dare take another breath.
Slipping on my shoes, I find Jacob exactly where I left him. He drags me by the hand out of the garden before either of us can make a sound. Once we are at a safe enough distance from the farm, I find my voice again. ‘So what is all of this about?’
‘Hope.’ He grins, and takes me again by the hand, this time not stopping until we reach the barn on Hope Farm.
Sliding open the doors, a small lamp is lit in the corner, casting a warm glow over a pile of hay.
And there, in the middle of it all, Hope lies curled up, purring against two kittens that cry and mew through the first moments of their lives.
Turning back to Jacob, he watches me take it all in, my eyes growing hazy with each glance I make at the kittens.
‘I thought she’d just been getting fat,’ he explains.
‘You know her age, coupled with the fact that you’re here all of the time feeding her when you think no one has seen.
’ He laughs and I flush. ‘But then she was making a proper racket earlier, and she’s never been a cat to make a fuss, and so I followed her here, she got herself comfy, and then these two arrived not long after.
’ Jacob stands beside me now, as we watch the new family from a distance.
Hope is unperturbed by visitors, and almost happy to show off her latest creations.
‘I wanted to come and get you straight away, but I didn’t want to leave her. ’
‘How long have you been out here?’ I look at him in awe.
‘What time is it?’ he asks, bleary eyed.
‘Just gone one.’
‘Maybe four or five hours.’ He shrugs, unable to stop admiring the kittens.
‘Jesus, Jacob are you not cold? Or hungry?’
He rolls his eyes and presses his hand to my cheek, and the warmth of it spreads across my whole face in an instant.
‘Clearly not.’ I mumble, and tighten my dressing gown around myself.
For a moment or two, we stand side by side, simply observing in silence as two tiny creatures adjust to life on earth, completely clueless but leaning on each other to try and figure it out.
Minutes pass like hours as we sit down on the hay, unable to take our eyes off the kittens as they cry out for their mother, who in turn licks at, and manoeuvres them, as their eyes still haven’t opened.
The awkwardness of meeting again completely melts away at the sight of those kittens, and we sit side by side in complete tranquillity.
‘How’s the exhibition coming on?’ Jacob asks after maybe an hour. His voice comes as a surprise, but I don’t jump. I thought he’d fallen asleep, propped up on the bale, but it seems he was just as transfixed as me, unable to fashion another thought while our minds were occupied with kittens.
‘Not great,’ I confess. ‘It’s like I sit down to do it, but nothing comes out.
I scribble away at designs, or I sew some testers, and it’s like my brain has stopped working.
I tried to sew an entire dress with no bobbin the other day.
The stupid thing fell to bits as soon as I picked it up.
Pretty sure I’m losing my mind.’ I laugh breathily, but there’s no humour there.
‘I can help you, you know, if you need it.’ I glance at his face and he stares back with all sincerity.
‘Me and Cal can give you a hand with some bits. I’m not sure how much help they’d be, but I know that even Alfie and Will would do anything for you.
You know you only have to ask, right?’ He’s making sure to remind me that he is nothing more than a friend, the same as any of his brothers.
I’m too tired to be hurt, and I know I shouldn’t be.
He’s made it clear we’re nothing more, and I have to respect that.
‘You all have your own stuff,’ I say. ‘You don’t need to worry about mine too.’
‘I always worry about you.’
I lean my head against his shoulder, the tiredness filling my body, rendering me unable to truly absorb the weight of his words.
‘I’ll miss you, you know,’ he whispers. ‘When you’re off on your adventure.’
‘You’ll miss me?’ I can’t bring myself to look at him. ‘What about all of your adventures? Your photography, the farm, your animals. You won’t have time to miss me.’
He does a little laugh, though it comes out as more of an exhaled breath that blows a streak of hair on my crown.
‘You know … Me moving doesn’t have to be the end of anything?’ I say. ‘I’ll still visit in the holidays, just like old times.’
Finally, I sit up, and take in the whole of his face. In the dim light of the barn his eyes are glassy, a melancholy smile tugging on his lips. It’s like neither of us wants to mention that I wasn’t here last summer.
Friends, Ava. Just friends, I tell myself. These are exactly the conversations that friends have at 2 a.m.
‘You are so much bigger than all of this, Ava. Bigger than the farm, than me, than this whole county. You’ll go to Milan, you’ll see the world, and you’ll leave this place far behind. And I’ll cheer you on when you do.’
‘Don’t talk like that. You’re being silly now.’ I huff. ‘If you want to get rid of me, you can just say that.’ A childish pout crosses my lip in my tiredness, and Jacob pulls me into his chest and I lie again, against his shoulder, fighting sleep with all of my might.
‘I’m not ever going to forget about you,’ I say sleepily, and his arm wraps around me tighter. ‘How could I? You’re my best friend.’
‘I think it would be impossible for me to ever forget you,’ is the last thing I hear as I drift into a deep sleep, lulled by his heart beat and the protection of his arm.